New York/Central Park

Brendan finds Osama

We were in Central Park on Tuesday, and my 7 year old son Brendan scampered up on one of the many rocky outcroppings in the park. As he reached the top a man seated cross-legged below spoke in a loud voice: "I am in New York to..." Then someone yelled "Cut!" I saw that the seated man was--uhh--Osama bin Laden. He was speaking to some cameras and microphones. I called for my son to get down from the rock, and a man came forward wearing a t-shirt with "The Onion" printed on it. Seeing the onion logo I figured it must be some Islamic media outlet.

I told the guy if he was going to have Osama bin Laden sitting here in Central Park he better let the cops know about it. He pointed over my shoulder to a genuine NYPD officer casually leaning against a nearby fence watching over things. Situation obviously under control, I apologized to the man for interrupting their interview--probably another of Osama's public service announcements--and we headed uptown to the Museum of Natural History.

New York/Around Town

Blue condominium on the Lower East Side

Back in New York I've done a lot of walking around. My friend Anamarie from Berlin was in town, and we strolled the Lower East Side where both of us lived when we were in school at Cooper Union. I wanted to check out the progress of Blue, the condominium designed by architect Bernard Tschumi. 2/3rds of its glass is now in, and it is unquestionably one of the most striking new buildings in New York. I have no doubt that many will hate the insistent blue of Blue, but I think it looks great, especially blue glass against the blue sky on a beautiful summer day.


Irish Hunger Memorial, Battery Park City

We walked downtown past Ground Zero and entered the Irish Hunger Memorial, a facsimile of the landscape of the western coast of Ireland complete with a ruined stone cottage brought over from County Mayo. To the north are the towers of the newest part of Battery Park City. Nearby, vacant lots are under construction, most notably, the site of the future Goldman Sachs headquarters.


Time Warner Center

Today, I walked by the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. Coming out of the subway, I pointed the camera up to the towers with the stainless steel globe mounted in front of the Trump International Hotel. Not an original view, I'm sure, but hard to resist. On the other side of the park I photographed the new Apple Store designed by Bohlin, Cywinski, Jackson architects set in the plaza of the GM building. Fifth Avenue was jammed with tourists, the plaza crowded, and the glass cube with glass spiral staircase magnetically draws people into the Apple (theme park) store.


Apple Store

Amsterdam/New York

Sidewalk shed, the New Museum, under construction on the Bowery

Flew to New York on the weekend with my family. Plan to do more Lower East Side photos as well as begin printing the Amsterdam, Berlin, New York portfolio series that I've been working on. The Berlin images will include one or two of the new pictures that I posted earlier. Scroll down to see those images. Next week we'll be in the Berkshires for some outdoor and cultural recreation.

Amsterdam/Berlin Scans

River Spree, Dutch Embassy on right (4x5 film)

A couple of final pictures of Berlin before I turn my attention back to New York. I was looking for the Dutch embassy, designed by Rem Koolhaas, which was completed in the last year. I came across this scene across the Spree from the building. The Fernsehturm (TV tower) was decorated as a soccer ball in the unmistakable magenta of Deutsche Telecom. Although I was focused, during my trip to Berlin, on certain key sites and areas--the Holocaust Memorial and Jewish Museum--I was also looking for more textural views through the seams of the landscape. The embassy is not prominent in the picture, but unlike most of the published architectural views, here one can see how it sits in the cityscape.

Amsterdam/Berlin Scans

I began my Berlin photographic odyssey in 1985 when the city was divided in two--the western part was surrounded by the Wall--and I've returned numerous times over the years. Like most visitors to Berlin I still look for remnants of the Wall and the DDR (East German) past. At Potsdamer Platz there is an exhibition comprised of grafittied slabs of the Wall with photos and text information on panels in between. The slabs follows the line of the border, which is marked by bricks set in the pavement. Behind is the Sony Center designed by architect Helmut Jahn.


Wall exhibition at Potsdamer Platz (4x5 film)

Everything in Berlin, it seems, is a potential memorial. Overlooked by most tourists is a nondescript building adjacent to the Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof called the Traenenpalast (Palace of Tears). This was the border crossing for train passengers and subway riders. Western day visitors passed through here routinely after undergoing an extremely officious passport control. In my case, on at least a couple of occasions, it meant being ushered with my camera gear into a tiny room to be interrogated about my plans for the day. For East Germans it was the hall where friends and family from the West said their good byes before crossing back to the other side of the world. Hence the "palace of tears." Today, it is a scruffy-looking performance venue and cultural center.


Traenenpalast (4x5 film)

Scroll down for more Berlin photos and observations.

Amsterdam/Berlin Scans

Back to the Berlin scans. One of my goals while in Berlin was to get a good photograph of the Holocaust Memorial designed by Peter Eisenman. I spent several hours there--a somewhat blustery day with more cloud than sun. The obvious "photographer's" view of the monument is to emphasize the abstraction of the black slabs. Telephoto lenses nicely compress the space and flatten it out, if you like that kind of thing. The picture I am most satisfied with is almost identical to the digital camera image I posted earlier.

It's a simple view from the southwest corner of the site. At first it seems to contain a ramdom sprinkling of objects and colors. But after looking at the image awhile I noticed a centrally located diamond shape formed by the lines of the pavement and the tree branches. Just off center a couple holds hands and directly in the middle a group of people behind some trees poses for a camera. The walls of buildings in the rear reinforce the spatial geometry of the picture. The sky vaguely mirrors the slabs of the memorial.


Holocaust Memorial (4x5 film)

The memorial is clearly popular, situated conveniently between the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz. It is also located at the heart of what was once the Nazi government quarter, and in the cleared swath of the death strip of the Berlin Wall. The somberness of the dark slabs is lost on the children who run pell mell through the gridded maze. Tourists stand or sit on the slabs posing for snapshots, digital cameras held high at arms length.

Along the east side of the memorial a row of souvenir shops and fast food restaurants has recently been built. The stores sit on a raised wooden veranda with postcard racks and tables and chairs in front. Dunkin' Donuts and the Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe.


Holocaust Memorial and postcard racks (4x5 film)

Amsterdam/July 4

Pulling down statue of King George III, New York City, July 9, 1776

The following song is loosely based on the Declaration of Indpendence. Lines taken or adapted from the original text are highlighted. The recording was done straight to computer without any benefits of a recording studio. But the quality should be listenable to most ears. Please feel free to share the lyrics and sound file.

declaration.mp3

***

declaration

in the course of human events
these truths betray a liar
red rockets glare our flag still there
over baghdad nights afire

the tyrant king usurps the throne
lets slip the dogs of war
terror thrown a useless bone
to settle obsolete scores

pull the statue down
watch it tip fall and shatter
break his phony crown
and his cronies tumble after

let facts be submitted to a candid world
the chaos of shock and awe
a long train of abuses
he refuses his assent to laws

a shadow state perpetual war
mercenary corporations
complete the works of death
tyranny and desolation

pull the statue down
watch it tip fall and shatter
break his phony crown
and his cronies tumble after

tramped on dragged through
a prison of earthly delights
strip searched and naked
certain unalienable rights

morning light frozen height
the blinding gates of hell
declare the causes which impel
the day the towers fell

pull the statue down
watch it tip fall and shatter
break his phony crown
and his cronies tumble after

throw the gauntlet down
our lives our sacred honor

© Brian Rose

Amsterdam/Ijmuiden

Dutch Indian on the road to the beach at Ijmuiden

Amsterdam/Berlin Scans

Since I've begun photographing the city in 1985, much of Berlin continues to lie exposed, whether ruined and abandoned, or under construction and in transition. I stepped into a hinterhof (rear courtyard) of a building between Mauerstrasse and Wilhelmstrasse in the heart of the old government quarter. A number of art galleries had taken over spaces hidden from view from the street, and a hodge podge of different structures, some old, some new, were revealed. I found it a particularly vivid example of the layering of the city.


Courtyard between Mauerstrasse and Wilhelmstrasse (4x5 film)

When I first visited what was East Berlin in '85 I was shocked by the condition of the buildings, most still showing the scars of World War II, and even the new ones already beginning to look shabby. There were a number of showcases, however, that had received some attention like the Pergamon Museum and Schinkel's Schauspielhaus, the concert hall. The Neues Museum on the Museum Island, on the other hand, was a ruin. It is finally being renovated based on plans by David Chipperfield.

From the architects' website: The power of the ruin not least stems from this exposed brickwork shell, investing the building 150 years after it was first imagined, with the indelible presence of a picturesque classical ruin.

Today the building is under construction, covered with scaffolding and towered over by cranes, that ubiquitous element of the Berlin skyline. A shrapnel pocked building was on the right, a piece of a classical collonade stood beyond wire fencing, and a tourist couple stopped to gaze.


Neues Museum under reconstruction (4x5 film)